The home secretary, Charles Clarke, will today pick up the Conservatives' election challenge on immigration when he announces that migrant workers seeking to enter Britain will have to pass a skills test, as part of a package of measures designed to tighten the law in response to voter pressure.

He will also announce, as part of his five-year plan, that measures are to be introduced to establish electronic forms of border controls, to ensure that those on work permits leave the country when their permits expire, and to restrict the rights of some to bring in dependants beyond their immediate family.

Labour strategists hope that the package will help them to neutralise one of the few issues on which the Conservatives enjoy a substantial and sustained opinion poll lead.

Though Mr Clarke's talk of driving out "people who are a burden" on society prompted some criticisms yesterday, the three main parties are all approaching this election-sensitive issue carefully.

They broadly agree on the merits of controlled economic migration, but disagree on how to handle asylum. Yester day Mr Clarke ruled out matching the Tory plan to have a quota for the number of asylum seekers - 15,000 a year - allowed to stay in Britain.

But in an appearance on BBC1's Breakfast with Frost the home secretary did indicate fresh measures against those who falsely claim asylum.

Labour will also step up the deportation rate of those whose asylum claims are rejected.

Today he will unveil extra powers to deal with the people-traffickers who exploit migrants working clandestinely in Britain.

Today Michael Howard will shift the focus of what some politicians carelessly call the "asylum and crime" agenda to Labour's "charade" on prison sentencing.

A YouGov poll for the thinktank Migrationwatch claimed that 45% of voters see immigration as an issue that might affect their vote, and that 77% of voters disagree in varying degrees with claim that Labour has it under control.

But the aggressive language used by Labour ministers yesterday came at a price. The chairman of the Commission for Racial Equality, Trevor Phillips, expressed dismay at hearing Labour ministers claiming that migration had led to the "hospitality of the British people" being abused.

The former trade union leader Sir Bill Morris also cautioned against Labour and Tories getting into "a bidding war about who can be nastiest to asylum seekers".

Mr Clarke denies pandering to bigots by raising the question. "I reject that entirely," he said.

"I think that the issue of who does come into this country, and whether they are entitled to be in this country, who does settle here, and how we have border controls, is a perfectly legitimate aspect of public debate."

Mr Clarke confirmed that the basic outline of today's five-year plan for immigration and asylum will include these points.

· A skills test and a points system to decide who should be given work permits. "We will establish a system ... which looks at the skills, talents, abilities of people seeking to come and work in this country, and ensures that when they come here they have a job and can contribute to the economy of the country"

· New electronic borders. Proper tests and electronic fingerprinting of everybody who gets a visa to come to Britain will be established by 2008. Identity cards will be introduced for all foreign migrants in the country for more than than three months.

· A limit on dependants who come with those on work permits to spouse and immediate children.

· New measures to deal with people-traffickers.

· A clampdown on those who come to Britain to make false asylum claims, and to ensure that they are removed once their appeals have failed.

Mark Oaten, the Liberal Democrat's spokesman, endorsed Labour's rejection of the Tory quotas plan for asylum. The jury was still out on the Home Office's ability to deliver an efficient asylum system, he said.

"For too long it has pandered to the right and not been positive about welcoming genuine refugees, while at the same time its systems have failed to act quickly enough when people try to abuse them."